ArcaMax

WASHINGTON -- Last week in this space I wrote about culture and how essential it is to the politics of a nation. If the culture of a country is upbeat, the country will be fine. If the culture of a country is in decline, its politics will follow. Simply put, culture prefigures politics. Russia -- once referred to as the Soviet Union -- is an ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Do you know that this country was once derided as being the most prudish of all the major countries on earth, even more prudish than the U.K.? For decades, we were laughed at for our prudish ways. Then something happened. We moved from being puritanical to being obsessed by sex and, by the way, obsessed by violence, too. We ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Tucker Carlson's recent travails with the media remind me of the great M. Stanton Evans' solomonic judgment regarding Richard Nixon. Said Stan: "I never liked Richard Nixon ... until Watergate." Then he saw the 37th president in a different light. Well, I did not like Tucker Carlson very much until he got fired by Rupert Murdoch....Read more

WASHINGTON -- Who is buried in Grant's Tomb? Actually, Ulysses S. Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb, which comes as a bit of a surprise to young Americans educated in our modern educational factories, all airconditioned, with counselors on every floor and armed guards patrolling the halls. Also, there are psychiatrists on duty daily for troubled...Read more

WASHINGTON -- I am about to put the finishing touches on my memoir. The book will be about 400 pages in length, but I had a lot to reveal. I spent some time dilating on my adventures with the world champion Indiana University swim team. It seemed that everyone on the team held a world record but me.

Then there was the founding of The American...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Sergey Lavrov, Russia's suave minister of foreign affairs, was recently asked by one of Russia's ubiquitous billionaires: whom does President Vladimir Putin seek advice from on the Ukraine war? He responded that Putin has only three advisers, though they are renowned. They are Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The busybodies of the world health organizations are at it again. As if they have not caused enough acidosis and paranoia in the country with their insistence that we all wear masks to thwart COVID-19, they are now renewing their assault on demon rum and related beverages. These are the same busybodies who hound law-abiding gun ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- I have of late been searching vigorously through my morning newspapers for the causes of and the cures for inflation. It seems to me that most people whom I know are well aware of what causes inflation and what might be the cure for it. The cause is too much money chasing too few products. The cure for it is to restrain the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- In the course of my life-long study of political science and related perfidies, I have noted that many political leaders of high achievement have an extraordinary aptitude for ambiguity, not to say dishonesty. The best example of this is President Franklin Roosevelt. He was not only a master of ambiguity, but he was also a ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- With all the talk about the discovery of mass burial graves in faraway Ukraine, there is little thought of such graves being discovered here in America. Yet in recent weeks in bucolic Williamsburg, Virginia, archeologists have found their own mass grave. It is a graveyard that they believe is associated with the Civil War's Battle ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- This past week, my matutinal readings of the obituaries in the morning newspapers were particularly rewarding. Truth be known, the first thing I turn to in the morning newspaper is generally the obituaries. They are so lively and informative, particularly in The New York Times, whose obits I find better written than the rest of the...Read more